


The Rule of Cool

by iguanastevens



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, LLF Comment Project, M/M, Mutual Pining, Yuri POV, otabek is a human disaster, so is yuri
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 23:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14757944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iguanastevens/pseuds/iguanastevens
Summary: Or, a Biography of Otabek Altin: “Greatest Hits Compilation of the Dumbass Shit He Does, Volumes 1-???”





	The Rule of Cool

         Every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

         Yuri’s tutor explained it to him, but he was already achingly, intimately familiar with the concept.

         For example, a quadruple Salchow, performed by a certain skater of exceptional skill and not-so-exceptional size, might reach an average height of fifty centimeters. A fifty-kilogram Russian teenager, accelerating at nine-point-eight-one meters per second squared, with a stopping distance of several centimeters of bent knees, would hit the ice with close to four thousand newtons of force.

         As an unrelated point of comparison, a professional boxer’s punch clocks in at about five thousand newtons.

         As a hopefully unrelated comparison, four thousand newtons is the force required to break a human tibia when applied from the wrong – or right – angle.

         Each time Yuri landed and hit the ice with enough energy to power sixty-five standard light bulbs for an hour, the ice, with its eye for an eye, equal and opposite reaction, hit him back with every bit of it.

         Yuri received full marks on his homework for that day, even though he’d ignored the actual question in favor of calculating exactly how much he was fucking over his knees with each day of practice.  

         So, no. Yuri was no stranger to the third law of motion. However, he preferred to call it the First Rule of Everything.

         If someone hit you, you hit them back just as hard.

         If a debt was owed, it must be repaid to the letter.

         If a certain someone drank your tea while your back was turned, you broke into her locker and ate her stash of chocolate.

         Everything, physical or not, had its own equal and opposite reaction.

In light of this, the reality of Otabek Altin shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

         See, Otabek was cool. He was really, extremely, leather-jacket-and-motorbike, eyes-of-a-soldier awesome.

         The universe had to balance that out with _something._  

:: :: ::

Spring 2017. Helsinki.

         It felt like something out of a movie. Yuri wasn’t sure whether it was one of those cheesy American blockbusters that they showed on planes that had the three cusses and single sex scene cut out in the most awkward, obnoxious manner possible, or if it was the last clip of an epic sci-fi battle where the buff protagonist punches the alien warlord into a black hole five seconds before the universe implodes, but it was definitely one of those two.

         Okay, so it wasn’t anything like a movie. It was just fucking boring, and it didn’t seem like JJ was about to peel off his fake human skin and eat a cameraman, so Yuri sank back into his hoodie and oversized sunglasses as the press conference continued.

They had the medalists lined up behind rows of the ubiquitous speckled-grey folding tables that would undoubtedly claim fingers from at least half the poor saps responsible for cleaning up. Sure, they were hidden under pretty blue tablecloths, but they were there. Lurking. _Waiting._

         No, he was a spy, Yuri decided, hiding in plain sight. Here, he was invisible, though the hordes of reporters would ambush him once he stepped outside… if he was lucky. If he wasn’t lucky, it would be the Angels. Journalists had rules. Shitty rules that they ignored half the time, but they had them. The Angels didn’t have rules of any variety or level of enforcement. The Angels had pure, unadulterated, terrifying bloodlust. Except instead of blood, they wanted signatures, and Yuri couldn’t even rely on the looming specter of an untimely death to release him from their grasp.

         Anyway. Movies. Spies. Yuri Plisetsky, undercover in the enemy’s midst.

         It would be more satisfying to be behind the table, but Mila had been on him to look on the bright side.

         So, positive fact number one: he wasn’t being hunted for sport.

         Positive fact number two: Otabek looked really good with his hair messed up like that.

         Positive fact number three: it gave Yuri a great opportunity to think up an alibi for when he murdered JJ later that night.

         Wait, rewind. Back to positive fact number two. Otabek.

         It was, Yuri decided, inarguably true. Up until that moment, he hadn’t dedicated _too_ much attention to appreciating the precise angles of Otabek’s jawline when the light hit him from exactly the right angle, especially when he took a sip of water just as the reporter asked him a direct question…

         … and choked on it. Otabek spluttered for a second before leaning into the mic.

         Yuri sat back.

         It was only to be expected. After all, Otabek was cool, and funny, and his best friend, and as previously established, extremely attractive from even the most objective point of view. Furthermore, Yuri himself was newly sixteen and trapped inside a body that was determined to launch him into the sun without warning.

         Yes, only to be expected. Completely normal.

         It could have been uncomfortable. It could have been a repeat of that time last month when he’d caught himself thinking, _hey, have Mila’s legs always been that long_ and then had to spend the rest of the afternoon googling, a) if men could be nuns, and b) whether or not nuns had to actually be religious, because obviously Yuri couldn’t be trusted to even think about sex.

         The press conference was taking forever. Somehow, watching it seemed to drag it out even longer than being part of it.

         Or maybe it really was taking forever. It just _kept going._ No one would tell JJ to shut his overly large mouth, though Yuri did see JJ jump a couple of times and he _knew_ that Otabek had kicked him under the table.

         Finally, _finally,_ everyone stood up and began to wander off, staggering away like drunk, confused jellyfish. The cameras were still rolling, of course – journalists cut through the crowd, cornering their marks like lions singling out an injured antelope. Yuri watched as two of them rounded on Otabek. Hah. As if anyone other than the Kazakhstani sports reporter would manage to get more than three words and a blank stare out of him.

         Otabek saw them coming and Yuri, super-secret agent extraordinaire, elbowed his way to the edge of the room and jerked his head to indicate an escape route that should get them back to the hotel with only a couple of illegal shortcuts.

         This meant that Yuri had a front-row seat for what happened next.

         It was, in a way, tragically beautiful.

         Otabek caught Yuri’s eye, nodded, and moved to stand up. His silver medal glinted in the fluorescent light.

         As he rose, his knee caught the table, the speckled-grey monstrosity that lay in wait beneath the pretty blue cloth.

         Otabek put his hand down to steady it, shifting his weight to his other leg, which was still hooked around the leg of his chair because Otabek was physically incapable of sitting down like a normal human instead of a sentient pretzel.

         The chair toppled. Otabek followed it.

         The table tipped, crashing to the floor.

         The pretty blue tablecloth billowed out, covering the whole tableau like a sheet draped across a crime scene.

         The cameras, of course, were still rolling.

         Otabek gave a thumbs-up from the bottom of the crumpled heap.

:: :: ::

Autumn 2017. Moscow.

         It turned out that firsthand knowledge of the way in which Otabek’s brain sometimes cut contact with his body, leaving him to collapse in a truly spectacular tangle of limbs, was not only a) part of being friends with him and b) hilarious, it was also c) a necessary component of surviving the aforementioned friendship.

         See, Otabek’s clumsiness had a blast radius.

         First, it was Otabek nearly dropping his phone into Yuri’s tea and leaving them both soaked when he tried (and failed) to catch it. Then, it was Otabek leaning against the button panel in the lift and pressing _every single one_ with his butt, forcing them to stop at each of the hotel’s nearly two dozen floors… until, of course, someone else stepped on and Otabek made a noise like an asthmatic goose before leaping out and dragging Yuri to the staircase instead.

         On the ice, Otabek was powerful, precise, and controlled. Off the ice, he was a danger to society.

         And himself.

         And Yuri.

         They’d spent enough time together that Yuri had learned the basics of How To Survive Otabek Altin by the time the Rostelecom Cup rolled around.

         Lesson one: it comes out of nowhere. Entire days might pass without incident. Then Otabek would be strolling down the street like any other functional human and _bam,_ Yuri got all of a split-second’s warning as Otabek’s attention wandered and he slammed into a streetlamp. The whole thing happened in an instant, but it took several minutes for Yuri to stop laughing for long enough to help peel Otabek’s whining form off the pavement.

         Lesson two: It was more common in times of stress… and Otabek’s definition of stress was its own disaster. Competitions? Fine. He was chill. Or at least, he was more chill than Yuri, who spent the night before events trying not to claw at the hotel wallpaper. However, trying to catch a train? Oh, no, _that_ was a problem. Yuri would forever treasure the memory of Otabek launching himself through the sliding doors just as they closed with enough force to smack his face against the window on the other side. It was second only to Otabek’s expression of sheer shock and betrayal as he realized that Yuri, frozen in place, hadn’t followed him on.

         And, most vitally, lesson three: It was contagious.

         Unfortunately, knowing something and being able to make use of it are entirely different matters.

         Yuri should have realized that _something_ lurked on the horizon as they walked through the Moscow streets. Otabek was in top form: his leather jacket had made a reappearance as the weather grew chilly, his hair had grown out just enough so that it flopped in front of his eyes like he was about to star in a music video, and he’d gained the eternal favor of Yuri’s grandfather by pulling his laptop out of his bag in the middle of lunch to demonstrate a heretofore unknown expertise in 1980s Russian heavy metal.

         (Yuri’s taste in music hadn’t sprung from nowhere, but most people laughed if he told them. Otabek had not.)

         Basically, Otabek was a really cool caterpillar who had climbed into a cocoon since the last time Yuri saw him, and then he’d come to Moscow as a fucking _awesome_ butterfly. Like, the kind of butterfly all the other butterflies dreamed of being, even though they knew they didn’t have a chance.

         Plus, Yuri was now just a bit taller than Otabek, but still just short enough that Otabek would look up to meet his eyes without tilting his head. In other words, Yuri’s very attractive best friend had given him unintended bedroom eyes multiple times a day.

         This was _fine._ Absolutely not a problem. No way.

         So, in conclusion, it really wasn’t Yuri’s fault. It was that the cold and uncaring universe had tipped over into outright malice, and he was a teenager trying to deal with growth spurts and hormones and homework and international figure skating competitions, which, let’s be honest, is not a recipe for a calm and stable individual. Really, it was a miracle that Yuri managed as well as he did.

         Someone should give him a medal.

         Because, _hypothetically,_ imagine that Yuri was hyped up on enough competition-fueled adrenaline to give a whale the jitters. And _hypothetically,_ imagine that his best friend had developed a new habit of letting his hand brush against Yuri’s elbow or rest on his shoulder for a moment.

         It would have been enough to drive anyone over the edge, even without the free skate looming on the horizon.

         Yuri laid out his case in the court of _Oh God Why._

         First, it wasn’t _his_ fault that Otabek’s laugh was so distracting. Yes, Yuri may have forgotten that they were waiting to cross the street and not skipping through a field of flowers, but that couldn’t be held against him.

         Second, it wasn’t _his_ fault that Otabek chose to get his attention by placing the palm of his hand flat on the middle of Yuri’s back.

         Third, it wasn’t _his_ fault that Lilia, Mistress of the Dark, She Who Rules With An Iron Fist, was really into good posture. As in, _slouch and you will not only pray for death but for the peace of hell itself once I’m done with you_ style of good posture.

         Fourth, and finally, it wasn’t _his_ fault that Otabek wasn’t just an utter disaster of a human. No, Otabek was the Typhoid Mary of human disasters.

         Yuri never had a chance.

         What Yuri did have, however, was an overabundance of nerves, willpower stretched to the breaking point, and upwards of a decade of impeccably trained muscle memory. The moment Otabek touched him, the simple instinct to live another day snapped Yuri’s upper body into perfect _shoulders back chin up hips in line_ ballet posture.

         What Otabek had was an up close and personal introduction between his cheekbone and the back of Yuri’s head.

         “Ow,” Otabek said in the same conversational tone he might have used when asking someone to pass the salt. Then, as Yuri’s mental gears ground into motion with a rusty, screeching _oh fuck,_ Otabek whined, “ _Yura.”_

         “Shit, Beka.” Yuri rubbed the back of his own head, which throbbed indignantly. Had he cut himself on Otabek’s face? Was his skull about to spontaneously and mercifully explode, putting him out of his misery? “Fuck, are you okay?”

         “I think you liquefied my brain,” Otabek groaned.

         They parted ways an icepack and a movie later to meet with their coaches for a final few hours of prep work.

         “Yo, Beka. You’re on speaker,” Yuri said as soon as the call connected. He made eye contact with Yakov, who’d gone from puce to a pleasant shade of salmon and no longer seemed to be risking a rage-induced stroke. “How has your day been?”

         “Hi, Yura. It’s been good.”

         “And your face?”

         “It’s fine, don’t worry.”

         “So, Beka,” Yuri continued, praying for the gods to grant him fifteen seconds of Otabek’s natural cool façade. “Do you know why your coach called my coach and told him I gave you a black eye?”

         “Um.”

         “And why I got screamed for the past thirty minutes about fighting?”

         “Uh.”

         “Yes, Beka?”

         “I might have told my coach that you gave me a black eye.”

         Yakov closed his eyes. His lips moved silently. Yuri thought he was counting to ten under his breath.

         “On purpose?”

         “I might have skipped some details.”

         Otabek was going to be the death of him, and the case would be dismissed when the jury laughed themselves into unconsciousness.

         “You know what I tell Potya when he’s being a little shit?” Yuri growled. “I tell him that he’s lucky he’s cute.”

         There was a moment of silence.

         “Good thing I’m cute, then.”

         “You’re damn lucky, Altin.”

         Yakov grunted and shuffled away as Yuri’s ears caught up with his mouth.

         Maybe if he _actually_ punched Otabek, Yakov would do Yuri a favor and murder him.

         :: :: ::

Spring 2018. Milan.  

         Otabek had a sixth sense for timing: he had the unerring ability to find the worst possible moment, and if the moment wasn’t quite bad _enough_ , he’d step up and make it worse.

         Was it really necessary for Otabek to begin his attempt to coax Yuri into trying a poptart – a mild obsession resulting from spending his early teens in America, he’d explained – moments before Lilia _If You Eat Junk Food I Will Kill You Before It Can_ Baranovskaya walked in? No. No, it wasn’t. And then, was it absolutely vital that Otabek panic, shove the whole pastry into his mouth to hide it, and spend the next few minutes coughing, leaving Yuri ( _innocent_ Yuri) holding the damning evidence? Also no.

         Anyway, the point was that Otabek could and would turn any innocuous moment into an utter disaster. That would have been bad enough even if he wasn’t a baffling mess of a human the rest of the time.

         When he picked his moments, he _picked_ them.

         Yuri hated the banquet after Worlds, and this year was even worse. Everyone was so fucking done with everything by the end of the season, tottering around on injuries that hadn’t had a chance to really heal since September, and half of them had just finished up at the fucking _Olympics._ They were expected to just hop right back up and haul off to Italy for another competition, because that was a great idea.  

         Of course, then the judges went and said that their performances seemed _flat._ Flat. Really.

         Basically, Yuri wanted a nap. He did not want a party. He did not want to socialize. He did not want excitement of any variety, thank you very much.

         But Otabek? Otabek wanted a drink.

         “If you get wasted, I’m not taking care of you,” Yuri informed him.

         It was a lie. They both knew it was a lie. They both knew that Yuri had painkillers and water bottles stashed in his room for easy access the next morning. That had been the status quo ever since Otabek managed to get a hangover from a single flute of champagne and called Yuri to let him know that he was actually, literally dying and he wanted to say goodbye.

         Neither one of them acknowledged the lie.

         “Want me to grab you something?” Otabek asked.

         “Is there a drinking age here?” Stupid question. It was Italy. There was a drinking age. No one cared. “I think I’m good.”

         By _I’m good,_ Yuri meant that he was very much _not_ good at managing the flow from his brain to his mouth in the best of circumstances. By _I’m good,_ Yuri meant _I will die before turning into Katsudon._

         Before he’d lost all control of his life, Yuri would have said that he’d never be at risk of stripping on the dance floor and wrapping himself around Otabek like a horny, lovesick limpet.

         Yuri mourned the loss of his status as a functioning member of society as he clung to the tattered remains of his dignity.

         “If they start dancing, I’m gonna jump out the fucking window.” Yuri eyed The Couple. Viktor was smiling. When Viktor was smiling, bad things were about to happen.

         “They _are_ dancing, Yura.”

         “They’re dancing. They’re not _dancing._ ”

         Otabek gave him a look. Or, more accurately, he gave him a Look that ran the gamut from bemused to judgmental with a pit stop at fond and a final destination of _I’m done with your shit, Yura._

         “Dance-offs, Beka. I mean dance-offs.” Yuri shuddered. Sure, if pressed, he might admit that it had been kind of fun. However, it would take an industrial hydraulic press, because he hadn’t just lost, though that would have been bad enough. He’d been obliterated. He’d been publicly murdered. “I should have won and everyone knew it.”

         From the corner of his eye, he saw Mila, also known as the eavesdropping hag, snort a gulp of her unsettlingly neon cocktail down the front of her dress. Yuri averted his gaze fast enough to give himself whiplash as Sara Crispino gasped dramatically and dabbed at Mila’s cleavage with a cocktail napkin. It was a close call for his sanity.

         Which was then thrown off a cliff, because Yuri’d turned to look directly into Otabek’s eyes.

         “Yura.”

         “Beka.” Yuri gave Otabek his best _I’m not having a heart attack_ face.

         “Are you okay?”

         “What? Of course I am.”

         “You looked kinda nauseous for a second.” Otabek blinked slowly at Yuri, and then at his wine glass, which was empty. He set it down on a nearby table. “Yura.”

         “Yep, that’s my name,” replied Yuri, and then _mayday, all hands on deck, sound the alarm,_ because Otabek’s hands were cupping Yuri’s face and they were warm and slightly rough with callouses and oh god, Yuri hadn’t shaved before dinner, did his face feel weird and scratchy or _no,_ what he called his stubble was actually more like duckling fluff and was his face supposed to be scratchy and it was super weird that it _wasn’t_ scratchy and _oh, fuck._ He was a goner and _death was worth it._

         “Yura, I love your dancing,” Otabek said, now holding Yuri’s gaze as well as his face. “Your ballet is like- like a cheetah. You look like you could murder everyone in the audience and they’d applaud if they weren’t dead, but you _won’t_ because murder’s not a part of ballet and you’re good at ballet so you can’t kill anyone. But you could.”

         “Hnnngh,” Yuri choked out.

         But tipsy Otabek was a talkative Otabek, and he wasn’t finished yet.

         “I love your fun dancing too,” he continued, apparently unaware of Yuri’s crisis. “You’re beautiful and you look like a baby giraffe. A badass, carnivorous baby giraffe, but also like you have seven knees?”

         “Ngh,” agreed Yuri.

         “Baby giraffes don’t win dance-offs, Yura,” Otabek told him earnestly, still cupping his face and staring deep into his eyes. “And that’s okay. They should dance exactly how they want to dance, but they shouldn’t be upset about losing two and a half years later. Okay?”

         “Okay.” He immediately wished he could take it back as Otabek let go of his face. He didn’t have seven knees. He didn’t even have two. He had lumps of gelatin where his joints should have gone.

         _Pull yourself together, Plisetsky. Act fucking natural._

         Anyone else would have been eviscerated for so much as implying that he danced like a baby giraffe. However, Otabek had called him beautiful in the same breath and was now giving him a look of concern.

         “Yura, are you sure you’re feeling okay?”

         Okay? Yeah. Thirty seconds from an untimely death, but absolutely okay. Yuri decided to opt for a distraction instead of telling Otabek about his impending demise.

         “Hey, look, I think JJ’s trying to talk to Leo.”

         Otabek sighed. “I’ll intervene.”

         Yuri collapsed into a chair the instant Otabek turned his back, mourning the loss of his skating career now that his bones had been replaced with rubber. Mila’s breath tickled his ear as she wheezed with laughter behind him.

         “Just how many drinks has he had?” she managed to ask between giggles as she took the seat beside him.

         Yuri winced. The universe was cruel, and there were witnesses to his descent into madness. Cruel, unsympathetic witnesses.

         “Two,” he groaned, dropping his head to the table with a _thunk._ His earlier statement had been wrong: he still had at least one bone. The forehead bone. It hurt. “Two fucking drinks.”

         Mila blinked at him. Then she grabbed his face, because apparently that’s just what people did to Yuri these days. Her hands were not warm, gentle, and slightly rough. She was not going to call him a beautiful baby giraffe. “Yura. Yurka. Yurik. Dear, darling Yurochka.” She tutted and sank her claws into his cheeks as he tried to pull away. “Why the fuck didn’t you ask him to dance?”

         Yuri gaped at her.

         “Yura, you are…” Mila paused. Her eyes settled on something just over Yuri’s shoulder. She grinned and released his face. “Hello, Otabek. Did you know that Yura is a human disaster?”

         “I did.” Otabek set his hand on top of Yuri’s head and smiled down at him as Yuri sputtered, incoherent with sudden rage. Didn’t they realize what he’d been through? What _Otabek_ had put him through?

         “Who the fuck are you calling a disaster?” he screeched. “Have you looked at yourselves, assholes?”

         Mila snickered. Yuri shot her a glare to remind her that she was literally _the worst._ She laughed harder.

         “Ludmila,” he hissed. “Talked to Sara lately?”

         She winked and spread her hands out in front of herself like she was showing off her manicure. Her fingernails were a shiny, lurid pink. They were also very, _very_ short. “Oh, Yura, I thought you didn’t want any details.”

         No, no, _no._ Yuri did not need that thought in his head. He needed it out of his head and burned from his memory through whatever means were necessary. He gagged.

         Otabek tipped his head in confused innocence. He opened his mouth to ask a question that should never, ever be spoken aloud.

         Yuri made up for every bad thing he’d ever done and kicked Otabek in the shin before he could say anything.

         _“Do not,”_ he mouthed desperately. “Please, please shut up. Don’t say _anything._ ”

         Otabek shut up. His lips looked softer than usual as he pouted and rubbed his leg. Yuri tried to tear his eyes away from Otabek’s mouth. He failed.

         “Well, I’m off,” Mila interjected, standing up. She leaned in, kissed Yuri’s cheek, and murmured, “Don’t try me, Plisetsky. I will destroy you.”

         Then she was gone.

         Yuri glanced at Otabek, who’d removed his hand from Yuri’s hair, and wondered briefly about whether a bit of light headbutting might fix that little problem. It worked for Potya, after all.

         God, Mila was right. He was a mess. And shit, _that_ was a slippery slope, because if she was right about that, then maybe she also had a point about asking Otabek to dance. With him. To dance _with_ him. Had he missed his chance?

         Yuri swallowed hard and straightened his shoulders.

         He was about to stand up when Otabek sank into the chair that Mila had just vacated.

         “I’m exhausted,” Otabek groaned, resting his face on the table. Was it normal to be jealous of a tablecloth? “Yura, I’m so tired.”

         “Beka, _no,_ ” Yuri growled. “Beka, don’t you fucking dare-“

         Too late. Otabek was asleep, except Otabek didn’t sleep. He hibernated.

         Yuri thought about screaming. It wouldn’t wake Otabek up, but it might make him feel better.

         Instead, he sighed and looked around for someone who looked like they might be easily intimidated into performing manual labor. He needed help carrying Sleeping Beauty back to the hotel before he drooled all over the table.

         :: :: ::

Summer 2018. Almaty.  

         Yuri was a little stressed after the Dance That Never Happened. A bit frustrated. Some might even say that he was out of sorts.

         The fact was that Yuri had of a case of nerves so bad that it was about to burst out of Yuri’s chest, Alien-style, leaving everyone else grossed out and shuffling their feet in acute secondhand embarrassment.

         All things considered, Yuri thought he was doing a good job of staying chill as he dragged himself through Almaty International Airport. In fact, it was downright fucking normal to banshee-shriek Otabek’s name when Yuri finally spotted him hovering by the baggage claim. Yuri continued his calm, understated greeting by barreling towards Otabek, still screeching, and bulldozing a group of British tourists who should have known better than to get in his way.

         Otabek jumped, spinning around as he coughed on the sip of water he’d apparently just taken from the bottle in his hand.

         As Yuri charged towards him, Otabek lifted a hand to wave. Unfortunately, it was the same hand that held his water bottle, and its contents fountained through the air to thoroughly douse Yuri, the floor, and a handful of hapless bystanders.  

 _Fuck,_ Yuri thought. The world went into slow-motion as his foot hit the puddle, but wet tiles were nothing compared to an ice rink. He hadn’t spent over a decade training for nothing, and it was almost graceful as he dropped into a knee slide and skidded to a halt.

         His elegant stop was somewhat spoiled by a collision with Otabek’s legs, and then ruined as Otabek staggered and landed on top of him.

 _“Oof,”_ Yuri wheezed. “Hey, Beka.”

         “Hi, Yura.” Otabek grimaced and scrambled to his feet. He offered a hand to Yuri, muttering, “I guess I fell for you again.”

         Yuri hit the floor as Otabek flushed scarlet and dropped him.

         “I mean I fell on you?” Otabek stammered. Otabek, as a rule, did not _stammer._ He said some truly dumbass shit, but he said it with smooth, cool confidence. “I- you fell-“

         “Beka.” Yuri cut him off. Had he hit his head on the way down? Had he been poisoned by airplane food and was now hallucinating by the baggage claim? “Are you… flirting?”

         The tips of Otabek’s ears were red. Yuri watched the pink flush spread across his entire head, even darkening his scalp under the thin fuzz of closely shaved hair.

         “For, uh, the past year.” Otabek hauled Yuri upright. His expression had gone beyond blank, which was an interesting contrast to his glowing cheeks. “Thanks for noticing?”

         Yuri held Otabek’s deer-in-the-headlights gaze and realized several things simultenously.

         First: Yuri was, inarguably and forevermore, the world’s biggest idiot.

         Second: Otabek was, inarguably and forevermore, more of a disaster than Yuri could have imagined.

         Third: Later that evening, they were going to agree that no one would _ever_ hear about this, upon pain of death.

         Fourth: Otabek had just used the worst pick-up line in the history of humankind, and it was _working._

         And fifth: Yuri hadn’t actually said anything back to Otabek, who seemed to be considering the merits of throwing himself onto the baggage claim belt and disappearing with the rest of the unclaimed luggage.

         “Ask me on a fucking date, Altin.”

         Otabek choked on either air, embarrassment, or his own spit. Yuri sighed. And smiled.

         Yeah, he was definitely smiling.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [tumblr!](leopardprinttrashchild.tumblr.com)  
> I've also got a discord server, so if anyone wants to talk about Otayuri in general or talk about this fic/my other fics, check it out [here](https://discord.gg/MP3Ns). 
> 
> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including:
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * readers talking to each other!
> 

> 
> I reply to all comments! It may take me a few days, but I'll get there.


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